Arthur Conan Doyle

Amongst the books to which I am indebted for my material in my
endeavour to draw various phases of life and character in England at
the beginning of the century, I would particularly mention Ashton's
"Dawn of the Nineteenth Century;" Gronow's "Reminiscences;"
Fitzgerald's "Life and Times of George IV.;" Jesse's "Life of
Brummell;" "Boxiana;" "Pugilistica;" Harper's "Brighton Road;"
Robinson's "Last Earl of Barrymore" and "Old Q.;" Rice's "History of
the Turf;" Tristram's "Coaching Days;" James's "Naval History;"
Clark Russell's "Collingwood" and "Nelson."

I am also much indebted to my friends Mr. J. C. Parkinson and Robert
Barr for information upon the subject of the ring.

A. CONAN DOYLE.

HASLEMERE,

September 1, 1896.

CHAPTER I--FRIAR'S OAK

On this, the first of January of the year 1851, the nineteenth
century has reached its midway term, and many of us who shared its
youth have already warnings which tell us that it has outworn us.
We put our grizzled heads together, we older ones, and we talk of
the great days that we have known; but we find that when it is with
our children that we talk it is a hard matter to make them
understand. We and our fathers before us lived much the same life,
but they with their railway trains and their steamboats belong to a
different age. It is true that we can put history-books into their
hands, and they can read from them of our weary struggle of two and
twenty years with that great and evil man. They can learn how
Freedom fled from the whole broad continent, and how Nelson's blood
was shed, and Pitt's noble heart was broken in striving that she
should not pass us for ever to take refuge with our brothers across
the Atlantic. All this they can read, with the date of this treaty
or that battle, but I do not know where they are to read of
ourselves, of the folk we were, and the lives we led, and how the
world seemed to our eyes when they were young as theirs are now.

If I take up my pen to tell you about this, you must not look for
any story at my hands, for I was only in my earliest manhood when
these things befell; and although I saw something of the stories of
other lives, I could scarce claim one of my own. It is the love of
a woman that makes the story of a man, and many a year was to pass
before I first looked into the eyes of the mother of my children.
To us it seems but an affair of yesterday, and yet those children
can now reach the plums in the garden whilst we are seeking for a
ladder, and where we once walked with their little hands in ours, we
are glad now to lean upon their arms. But I shall speak of a time
when the love of a mother was the only love I knew, and if you seek
for something more, then it is not for you that I write. But if you
would come out with me into that forgotten world; if you would know
Boy Jim and Champion Harrison; if you would meet my father, one of
Nelson's own men; if you would catch a glimpse of that great seaman
himself, and of George, afterwards the unworthy King of England; if,
above all, you would see my famous uncle, Sir Charles Tregellis, the
King of the Bucks, and the great fighting men whose names are still
household words amongst you, then give me your hand and let us
start.

But I must warn you also that, if you think you will find much that
is of interest in your guide, you are destined to disappointment.
When I look over my bookshelves, I can see that it is only the wise
and witty and valiant who have ventured to write down their
experiences. For my own part, if I were only assured that I was as
clever and brave as the average man about me, I should be well
satisfied. Men of their hands have thought well of my brains, and
men of brains of my hands, and that is the best that I can say of
myself. Save in the one matter of having an inborn readiness for
music, so that the mastery of any instrument comes very easily and
naturally to me, I cannot recall any single advantage which I can
boast over my fellows. In all things I have been a half-way man,
for I am of middle height, my eyes are neither blue nor grey, and my
hair, before Nature dusted it with her powder, was betwixt flaxen
and brown.